The week of the 13th thru the 19th of May was without a doubt one of the fullest of the mission. But is was filled with many great events. Sunday, the 13th, was Mothers Day here and in America. I was blessed (?) with the opportunity to speak in Sacrament Meeting, in German of course. My German has improved but I'm still anything but fluent. Poor Bob had to listen to me practice reading my talk many times to make sure my pronunciation was correct so they would be able to understand me. I think he was more relieved than I was when it was over! Bob fixed lunch, so that was nice. But the highlight of the day was FaceTiming with our children and grandchildren. We caught Jared and Robilyn's family on Saturday, so we were able to squeeze them all in. It's a challenge being 8 hours ahead and having to catch everyone after church. So we were up quite late, but it was definitely worth it!
Monday was our weekly District Meeting in St. Gallen, Switzerland but this week was special because President Brown came to interview all the missionaries in our District and Sister Brown came as well to visit with each one. They are amazing and it is always a privilege and delight to be with them. We bring the lunch that we eat after our District Meeting and we love visiting with these outstanding missionaries and learning more about them and the experiences they are having. Such a blessing! It takes all day because of the distance we have to travel, but it is a highlight of the week.
Monday evening we went to our Branch President's home and made their family "American" pancakes. They have 5 children and they love this special treat. And we love to have this time with them to get to know them better. Great FHE!
Tuesday our service plans got rained out but it was P-Day (preparation day) and we had lots to do to get ready for the rest of the week.
Wednesday was super busy from early till late. We have Institute in Dornbirn, Austria every Wednesday and I always prepare dinner and then we take it there, we eat dinner and then have an Institute lesson with our YSA's. But on this Wednesday I also had to prepare food for our Zone Conference in Zurich, Switzerland on Thursday. Fortunately, because we combine the 3 Swiss zones for one Zone Conference, we have 2 other Senior Couples to help with the food. We feed about 90 people so it's a lot of food. And we have to travel over 2 hours to get to Zurich, so the food needs to be mostly ready before we go. Anyway, I also needed to shop for all the food on Wednesday so it would be fresh. I cooked all afternoon but everything wasn't quite finished when it came time to leave for our Institute class in Dornbirn, Bob didn't want me to be up super late cooking after getting home from Institute, so he convinced me to stay home and finish the food preparation for Zone Conference. It's the first time I've missed Institute and I really felt bad when I found out that we had the biggest turnout ever and I missed being with all our fabulous students. But they enjoyed the food I sent with Bob!
Thursday we had to get up early to get ready, pack the food in the car, and pick up the Elders in Dornbirn. We made it early to Zone Conference and teamed up with the other couples doing last minute preparations for lunch. We joined the other missionaries for our terrific Zone Conference. President and Sister Brown and the Zone Leaders really do an outstanding job of teaching, encouraging, and inspiring all of us. It is always such a blessing to attend. And we LOVE to see all the other missionaries that we only see at Zone Conference. Lunch turned out great! They loved the taco salads and chocolate cakes we served them. We had more excellent lessons in the afternoon and left feeling rejuvenated and ready to continue trying to be the best missionaries we can be! We dropped the Elders in Dornbirn and then hurried to Ravensburg for a meeting with our Branch Leadership that evening about how we are going to implement the new "Ministering" guidelines in our little branch.
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| Aaron and Sheila Andreason serving in Singen |
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| Walt and Katie Gasser serving in Freiburg |
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| President Christopher and Sister Laura Brown |
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| Elder Hartle and Elder Irvine with Bob |
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| Two of our Sisters with Elder Whittaker and Sister Lake |
Friday morning we took off early to walk to the train station in Ravensburg to catch our train to Salzburg, Austria. We have a wonderful Senior Couple serving there, Tom and Larena Matthews from Brigham City, UT. They invited us to come visit them and see Salzburg before they go home in June. They didn't need to ask twice! Bob and I haven't been there, but we've heard how beautiful it is and we couldn't wait to go. With the Matthews heading home in June, we didn't want to miss the opportunity of having a personal guided tour from them. They met us at the train station, we dropped our bag at the hotel nearby and we headed out. The reports about Salzburg were correct (Bob did visit Salzburg after his mission back in 1975). It is an incredibly gorgeous city with breathtaking scenery all around. The Matthews were excellent tour guides and drove us to St. Gilgen, St. Wolfgang, past the Wolfgangsee and on to Hallstatt. Words just can't describe the beauty! Hopefully, you can tell from the photos how pretty it is. We were extremely blessed to have great weather. It rained hard as we drove back to Salzburg but was finished by the time we walked to our hotel.
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| Larena and Tom Matthews at our stop for lunch overlooking Wolfgangsee |
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| Wolfgangsee |
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| Hallstatt |
On Saturday we all walked into Salzburg and saw everything we could before we had to catch the train back to Ravensburg later that afternoon. What an enchanting city! If your remember the movie The Sound of Music, this is where it was filmed and we saw some of the locations. Others were filmed in Hollywood in a set. We saw the Mirabell Palace and Gardens, the historic center of the city, Mozart's birthplace, the Salzburg Cathedral, and the Hohensalzburg Fortress on the top of the hill. The 360 degree views from there were unbelievable! We had delicious traditional German/Austrian dinners both days and loved it.
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| A scene from The Sound of Music |
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| A historic street in Salzburg |
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| Mirabell Palace and garden |
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| Is that one of our missionaries on top of the gold ball in historic Salzburg? |
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This was where they would drive in their horses and wagon to wash them.
The Hohensalzburg Fortress is on the hill above. |
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| View from the Hohensalzburg Fortress |
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The city of Salzburg with the Salzach river running through it.
One of the most important rivers of the Austrian Alps. |
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| A different view from the Fortress. |
What a blessing it is to serve in such an amazing part of the world and with some very dear and cherished new friends, young and older. We love being missionaries!
